GROUND, STOCK, AND POACHING 233 



not fetch 3,ooo/. for the season. Those who take the 

 average shooting, and wish for a moderate amount of 

 sport at a moderate expense, should look more closely 

 than they do into the records of the moor, should 

 submit to no clauses in their lease which oblige them 

 to keep on any particular keeper or nominee of the 

 landlord, and should study more closely the methods 

 which have been adopted on the moors where a really 

 successful result is shown. 



The exact nature of the grouse disease is very 

 difficult to determine. Lord Walsingham, some years 

 since, offered a considerable money prize for the best 

 essay on the subject ; but the result was unsatisfactory, 

 and no one, if I recollect rightly, offered a solution 

 worthy to receive the reward. Dr. Cobbold's pam- 

 phlet still remains as the only scientific effort offering 

 a tangible solution of the question. He ascribes it 

 all to the Strongylus pergracilis, a little thread-like 

 worm which breeds in the throat, and eventually in 

 thousands in all the organs of the bird. It is further 

 alleged that ponies and sheep had died on the moors 

 during years when disease was prevalent from the 

 attacks of the same parasite. But not even I )r. Cob- 

 bold can tell us whence or how the Strongylus pcr- 

 gracilis is produced, or whether it is the cause or 

 effect of weakness in the larger body. I remember, 



